


Cute Like a Knife

by miss_umbra



Category: Seduce Me (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 22:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17875661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_umbra/pseuds/miss_umbra
Summary: Mika Anderson's world is turned upside when her grandfather dies and she's transferred to the high school in his hometown. Now she much navigates a world of childhood romance, new friends, demons, corporate espionage, devil worship, internships, and falling in love.





	Cute Like a Knife

“You don’t have to take the train, Mika.” I inhale my mother’s scent for what would likely be the last time for months. She smells of jasmine, peppermint, and home. A home I’m no longer welcome in. “There is still time. Your father and I can drive you.”

 

I pull away from the hug and I know my face sours at the thought of four more hours with that man. “No thanks. I can manage.”

 

My mother gives me a small smile. “You know your father loves you, right? He just has a different way of showing it.” My mother’s eyes linger to my cheek, to the purple blotch that is the latest result of that ‘different way’.

 

I wish she would stop making excuses for him. I wish he’d stop taking his anger at his life out on me with his fists. I wish our family was whole. I wish we never moved out of Chicago. I wish I wasn’t such a disappointment. I wish my grandfather was still alive.

 

I grab my rolling luggage and say goodbye. I promise to call every day and that I’ll visit during the holidays. My mom promises that everything will be okay and that she will leave if things get too bad.

 

I wish I could say I believe either of us.

 

The trip to Union station is uneventful. My seat is next to a woman who won’t stop showing me pictures of her cats, so that is actually pretty awesome, but I’m too distracted to properly appreciate just how fluffy and fat Mr.Tabbykins is. The events that led up to me moving back to Chicago all by myself are running through my mind.

 

I was born in Chicago. I lived there with my mom and dad. Mom had more life in her eyes, back then. I saw a lot of my grandfather, too. More than I did of my parents. He would watch me when I wasn’t in school when my parents were working. Grandpa was the founder of the Anderson Toy Co, so there was never any shortage of things to play with, even when he took me with him to his blue-carpeted office. I loved that office. It had a squishy red couch and desk large enough for me and the director’s son to pretend was a cave when we went hunting for purple moon monsters.

 

I briefly wonder if there is any way I can just get that couch. Now that Grandpa is dead and some random protege that nobody heard about until after the funeral is CEO.

 

A man seated behind me complains about the rain, but I don’t mind it. The sound of it against the window is like fingers tapping. It’s hypnotic and soothing. There is just so much running through my mind, so much craziness to sort out.

 

I wonder if I’ll ever meet the man my grandfather appointed as his replacement. My father is super pissed about that, of course. He says that it is suspicious and is his father’s way of spiting him from beyond the grave. Both are good points but mostly I think Father is just mad that he can’t live vicariously through me. He knew the ship of him inheriting anything had long since sailed, but he always assumed that the title of CEO would go to me. “With proper tutelage, of course. At your grandfather’s alma mater.” Which is where I am enrolled and ready to go to. In the fall. I was actually looking forward to it. I was going to be on my own, away from my father. I wasn’t interested in the business courses my father had pushed me into taking, but I saw it as a reasonable enough trade-off for the freedom to be myself and to see my grandfather for the first time since I was 13. But then, he died. I inherited his mansion and my father kicked me out of the family home. So here I was, in a train to Chicago seven months earlier than planned and transferring to a new high school in my second semester of high school rather than starting college.

 

 

We pull into the station with a jolt and I leave my thoughts behind with my old life. It’s time for me to move on and into my new home.


End file.
